Mutiny on the Amazon and Other Vignettes
by Jacynthe Bleue
Summary: Now well and truly complete. A series of very short sketches. One per book. Mostly about Nancy, even when they're not.
1. Chapter 1

_1. MUTINY ON THE AMAZON_

"What did you do then?" asked Susan.

"We had a bit of an argument," said Nancy

"A bit?" said Peggy. "It was a whole one and a half!"

_Swallows and Amazons, Chp. XXII_

"Peggy, you donkey, you let her drift away!"

"I never!"

"You must have done. If she'd been tied up properly she wouldn't have drifted."

"I _did_ tie her up properly. Right there to the stump same as always."

"If you had, she'd still be here. I expect your knot slipped."

The unfairness of this was such that, for a moment, Peggy was unable to come up with a reply. Her knots _never_ slipped and Nancy knew it. They had practiced knots all winter, stealing away from the others at school, snatching fleeting hints of summer whenever they could. She could tie them all with her eyes closed and some of them one-handed, same as Nancy, maybe better. She finally got it out through clenched jaws and past the lump of rage in her throat that threatened to choke her.

"My knots – do – not – slip!"

Peggy turned away as she said it, not wanting to show the tears that were going to come any moment now. As she did she felt the wind on her cheek. It suddenly dawned on her what this meant, and she turned around in triumph. Theatrically, she wet her finger in her mouth and held it up.

"Wind's in the south, Captain."

She managed to say it in an almost normal voice, a fact of which she was very proud.

It took Nancy a moment to understand what her mate meant by this sudden change in topic, but she got there soon enough. A huge grin split her face.

"Barbequed Billy-Goats! You're right. She can't have drifted to windward."

Peggy nodded emphatically, not trusting herself to speak. This was, she thought, all the apology she was likely ever to get. As far as Nancy was concerned, the question was closed and it was on to the next thing and to Hell with hurt feelings. That was just the way she was. Peggy marched herself back to the Swallows' camp, pointedly not looking around to see if Nancy was following. Once there, she busied herself gathering wood and getting the fire going as a good mate should, however unreasonable her captain.

As it happened, Peggy was wrong. It took a while, but after an uncharacteristically long silence, Nancy came up holding what proved to be a large seed cake.

"I found this. Do you suppose it would be all right if we ate it?"

The cake was a peace offering; actually asking her opinion was an even greater one. Peggy knew this full well, but wasn't quite ready to let go of her anger just yet. She answered curtly.

"I suppose so."

Another long silence followed, during which no cake was eaten.

"Peggy … "

"Yes?"

"What do you suppose really happened? To _Amazon_, I mean."

Coming from Captain Nancy, this was surrender with full honors of war. Peggy couldn't help but accept it. That was the thing about Nancy, really. However hard one tried, it was impossible to stay angry with her.

"They must have taken her."

"Well, they'd jolly well better bring her back soon."

There was nothing to say to this. If they weren't home in time for breakfast they were in for it. They both knew it, and it couldn't be helped.

"Let's have that cake here."

_2. TWO-VOLUME NOVEL_

Nancy loosened her grip on John's arm, and John, in the darkness, knowing that she could not see, allowed himself to rub the place.

_Peter Duck_, Chp. XI

In the warm and well lit cabin of the wherry, Captain Nancy rolled her eyes at this latest indignity. Titty was enjoying it all far too much, knowing full well that when it came to storytelling she was the quickest of all of them, that her plot twists and turns, once she said them out loud, seemed obvious and would be agreed to by everyone, even if they meant that her elders and betters were once again made to look foolish. This was even worse than being seasick, which could, after all, happen to anyone. Clutching John's arm indeed, as if she would ever do such a thing.

Across the table from her, Captain John, quite unconsciously, was rubbing his arm. Nancy's scowl when she noticed this would have shivered a timber at twenty paces.

The two mates caught each other's eye. Both were past masters at observing their captains, at gauging their moods, and neither had missed the silent interchange. Susan smiled at Peggy, and wondered why Peggy didn't smile back.

_3. THE WRECK OF THE SWALLOW_

"I only squeaked once," said Peggy indignantly, "and anybody might have squeaked."

_Swallowdale_, Chp. X

"He should have reefed."

Nancy's comment, as they watched the _Swallow _come nearer, was detached, almost clinical. She wasn't finding fault, exactly. After all, she hadn't reefed herself when _Amazon_ had made the same journey, an hour earlier, but the wind hadn't been quite as strong then. Still, it didn't look right to her and, being Nancy, she wasn't about to keep it to herself.

Her sister, standing next to her, was unconcerned.

"They'll be fine. It's Captain John. "

She said it as if it were self evident, which for her it was. John would see them through. He always did.

Nancy wasn't so sure; she grew visibly agitated, her hands moving unconsciously to tiller and ropes.

"Come about, you galoot, bring her about _now_."

She muttered the order between clenched teeth, not realizing that she had spoken out loud. In her mind, she there on Swallow, in command.

Peggy smiled to herself at this foolishness and remained serene in anticipation of John's inevitable triumph.

And then came the crash and her world turned upside down. It was the surprise, really, that tore a shriek from her, surprise and maybe just a bit more.

Captain John Walker, sole master after God of the sailing ship Swallow and Commodore of the Fleet, was a fallible mortal after all, just like everyone else. For reasons she couldn't begin to understand, that thought made Peggy quite cheerful as she skipped down to assist with salvage operations.

_4. THE PIRATE QUEEN_ (By D. Callum)

Dorothea, for once, was inventing no stories. She was living in one.

_Winter Holiday_, Chp. IV

The train ride home felt to Dorothea like waking from a dream. She glanced over a Dick and saw that he felt the same. He smiled at her wistful gaze.

"Cheer up, Dot, I expect it's even harder for them, especially for her. She thinks it's all real."

Dorothea knew exactly what – and who – he meant. It was odd, really, they'd spent less time with Nancy than with any of the others, but it was her they both thought of now. The intensity of Nancy's excitement when she heard the story of their journey to the North Pole was fresh in her mind. "Capsized! Mast gone by the board! Oh you lucky, lucky beasts …"

It wasn't just the polar exploration. Dorothea remembered Peggy's stories of their career as the dreaded Amazon Pirates. Peggy took it all seriously too, but it wasn't the same. Dorothea opened her notebook to a fresh clean page and started to write. The title was easy to find.

'_The Pirate Queen'_ by D. Callum.

She paused, thinking of how to start. A passage came unbidden to her mind; she remembered it from a fairy story written by one of her father's Oxford friends. "She was beautiful and terrible as the morning and the night, fair as the sea and dreadful as the storm. All men loved her and despaired." Dorothea's literary ethics were not above a bit of judicious borrowing, and this seemed a fine beginning for the tale of the Terror of the Seas. She considered it a while longer, and crossed out the word 'men.'

5. THE GIRL WITH THE DANCING EYES

Mrs. Blackett had turned suddenly off the path and was walking across the lawn to the tents. Nancy, with dancing eyes, as if she knew that victory was won, was close behind her.

_Pigeon Post_, Chp. IV

For years afterwards, this is how Susan remembers her, how she thinks of her in the most private moments – the girl with the dancing eyes, bending he world to her will. They all follow her. Peggy is her faithful shadow. For the younger ones, Nancy is a force of nature, unpredictable as the wind and irresistible as the tides. Even John is Commodore only when she remembers to let him be.

Nancy says "If it wasn't for Susan, we wouldn't be going," and her heart soars even if she has doubts about what they are all doing. Should they really be taking Dick and Roger and the others into those hot parched hills, away from water and help? And the worst of it is that it's all for nothing, and Susan knows it. Nancy thinks that if they only find gold, her uncle will stay with her always, but this isn't how the world works. In Susan's world, men never stay. Her father is off to sea for months at a time, years even. Soon John will go, and someday Roger. All the gallons of gold in the world won't keep Uncle Jim from leaving Nancy behind the next time he has a mind to go. It's what they do, men; they aren't to be relied on. Nancy doesn't know this, or doesn't care, or thinks that she can change it. She's wrong and Susan knows it and none of it matters in the end, because in the end she will follow her, the girl with the dancing eyes, leading her into tomorrow.

**AUTHOR'S NOTES**

1. "Two—Volume Novel" is the title of a very short poem by Dorothy Parker, which goes, in its entirety, like this: "_The sun's gone dim and the moon's turned black; For I loved him and he didn't love back."_ Yes, Peggy, I'm looking at you. But why is Susan smiling?

2. Dorothea's quote is, of course, from J.R.R. Tolkien. The dates make it just plausible that he might have sketched out this bit of what eventually became _Lord of the Rings_ by then, and we know that he read his drafts out loud to groups of friends, so why not… ?. Needless to say Dot doesn't get it quite right – and Tolkien left out 'men' too.


	2. Chapter 2

6. TO SAIL INTO THE SUNRISE

"I've been keeping her going about south-east and a bit east," said Susan. "But we passed the lightship a long time ago. I kept going straight on like you said. It's still dark, but there's something else to steer by now. A sort of glimmer right ahead. … I put off waking you as long as I could."

John could hear the pride in her voice.

_We Didn't Mean to Go To Sea, _Chp. XVI

It had been, without any possible doubt, the worst night in Susan Walker's life. And yet …

And yet, as she steered _Goblin_ and her sleeping crew through the night, Susan felt an odd sense of exaltation. For all the beastly wretchedness and humiliation of illness, for all the unshakable sentiment of wrongness that they should be out here at all, for all the horrible gnawing worry about how worried everyone else was sure to be, even for all that, she admitted to herself, she wouldn't have missed it for anything. Wouldn't have missed this moment in which she had finally overcome her weakness to be here, in command.

As she glanced at her brother's sleeping form, she realized that in all of their years together, she had never felt closer to him. This is what it was like, then, to be captain. She let him sleep a while longer and steered confidently for the unseen dawn.

7. WHAT PEGGY IS GOOD AT

Peggy was the first to turn back, and within minutes she was calling to them.

"Got something, Peggy?"called Nancy, and added, "She's a galoot on some things, but pretty good on tracks."

_Secret Water_, Chp. XIX

Peggy Blacket, mate and part owner of the sailing ship _Amazon_, is in point of fact, good at a great many things.

She can quack like a duck in such a duck-like manner that real ducks stop whatever they are doing to admire it. She can track and spoor and lurk. She can make hammocks and mend sails. She can sail their boat and shoot their arrows as well as Nancy; they learned together after all, and only she has the patience to make the arrows. She can make drop scones as good as Cook's; she was always Cook's favorite. Nancy has no time for cooking, but is always willing to help eat the scones. She is good at making friends wherever she goes, and would have even more if it were not for loyalty to her sister. Nancy is mostly good at making enemies.

What Peggy is best of all at is managing her sister. Nancy Blacket, Terror of the Seas, is her captain and her friend, but there is no denying that she requires a good deal of managing. Uncle Jim can't do it at all, and Mother hardly ever tries. The less said about Great Aunt Maria the better. If it weren't for Peggy, Nancy's world would be made up exclusively of implacable foes and desperate wars. She would go down all guns blazing, but she would go down all the same. Peggy is rather more interested in staying afloat, and so they do.

Chatterbox Peggy will take her sister's darkest secrets to the grave. No one at home will ever know that, every year so far, the first week back at school, a despondent little girl named Ruth cries herself to sleep, inconsolably homesick for a place where Captain Nancy is a person of importance. And no one, not even Nancy, knows that the reason none of the other girls ever tease her about this is that, long ago, Peggy took the first one who even thought about it out behind the hockey pitch and thrashed her silently, thoroughly, and, needless to say, ruthlessly.

In return for all of this, Peggy is called donkey and galoot. She is cheerfully blamed for whatever may go wrong. But she is comforted when the thunder rumbles and never has to sleep alone. She is never ever left behind. She holds herself to be the luckiest person in the world.

8. MISS RUTH IS AT IT AGAIN

"Jibbooms, bobstays and battleaxes!" exclaimed Nancy. "If you call me Ruth again …"

"All right, Miss Nancy … though Ruth's a nice name, I must say."

_The Picts and the Martyrs_, Chp. I

Miss Ruth is at it again, thinks the Doctor. Nancy, indeed! She's even got me calling her that now. She's up to her tricks and jerking us all about like marionettes. If her poor mother knew the half of it, it would be the end of her. But it's her own fault, really, letting two young girls run wild like that. It isn't right and it won't get better with time. One of these days there will be a scrape she can't talk her way out of. Pity, really, her heart's in the right place. Won't matter in the end, though.

Miss Ruth is at it again, thinks Sammy the policeman, and why is it always me who's made to look the fool? God and his angels help the man who'll marry that one, that's all I can say.

Miss Ruth is at it again, thinks the Postman. Clever of her, though, you have to admit, finding a way to look after her friends like that. I just hope no one forgets and gives her away. Miss Turner's a right terror when she doesn't have her way. Bit like her niece, really.

Miss Ruth is at it again, thinks Cook. Bless her!

9. PIRATES !

"We landed on an island," said Roger.

"We did lots better." They heard Nancy's voice again. "We got picked up by pirates. We were in a pirate fight."

_Missee Lee_, Chp. IIX

Nancy had been adamant.

"This story has got to have pirates in it. Real ones. And they capture us but then we become friends and have adventures with them … when we aren't fighting desperate battles, of course."

Her eyes were shining as her thoughts ran away with themselves.

"… and we meet their leader, and she's a girl."

Roger grinned at this.

"… and she falls in love with John and gives away all of their secrets."

The two captains spoke at the same instant.

"On my ship, mister, able seamen know their place. They speak when spoken to."

"Shut up, Roger!"

This time, Peggy understood. She caught Susan's eye, and then both of them had to stage a sudden fit of coughing to hide mutinous laughter.

10. UP A HILL

(with apologies to Constantlearner and Fergus Mason)

"Hullo," said Captain Flint, "where are John and Nancy?"

"Gone exploring," said Titty, "up the valley to look at the deer and see if there are any of those Gaels."

_ Great Northern?_ Chp. XIV

Perhaps it was the steepness of the path, or the brisk pace set by his companion; perhaps it was something else altogether. For whatever reason, John had been silent for quite a long time.

"Penny for your thoughts, Commodore."

"Sorry. I expect I was wondering if we'll ever do this again. All of us together like this. I don't think I can come at all next summer. I'll be at sea, most likely. Training cruise."

Nancy nodded. They all knew this, even if no one had yet said it out loud. It was one of so many things that couldn't be helped.

"We'll miss you."

She turned with a sly smile.

"Peggy will miss you very much indeed."

John could find nothing to say to this unexpected turn in the conversation. Nancy's smiled turned into a piratical smirk.

"Surprised?"

"I guess I've never really thought about it."

"Well here's news for you, Captain John. She has. Thought about it, that is. At least she did. I found an old exercise book of hers this winter. It was probably from the year we first met you. She was practicing signing 'Mrs. Margaret Walker.'

"No!"

"Oh yes. She wasn't quite sure that was right, though. She tried 'Mrs. John Walker,' but that wasn't the best. By the bottom of the page it was 'Mrs. Admiral Walker."

For a moment, John was well and truly speechless, but then he looked at Nancy's shining eyes and burst into laughter.

"Well ... I suppose I should be flattered at her confidence in me. But I'm sure she's forgotten all about it."

"I'm sure she hasn't. You could do worse, you know. She's an heiress. Unless Uncle Jim surprises us all, half of Beckfoot is hers. Not to mention half of _Amazon_."

John tried desperately to keep a straight face.

"I'll admit that's very tempting. But maybe I could do better."

He looked Nancy straight in the eye, and suddenly neither of them was laughing at all.

When Nancy spoke, it was in a voice he'd never heard from her, quiet and, had it been anyone but Nancy, John would have said afraid.

"John, don't. I'm sorry I said anything. I shouldn't have. I'm sure she didn't mean anything by it and that she's forgotten all about it."

Which was altogether irrelevant, and they both knew it.

"Nancy…"

"Stop! Not one more word. Not now. Not ever. Just … just don't."

They walked in troubled silence for awhile, John altogether bewildered, Nancy startled at the violence of her own reaction, and sorrier than she could ever say, and both terribly worried that something irrevocable had happened between them. It was John, in the end, who found the way. He stopped abruptly, and held out his hand.

"Still friends…?"

Relief and joy surged over Nancy's face, as she took his hand and shook it heartily.

"Forever!"

She looked down the path and then turned with a grin.

"Race you to the bottom!"


End file.
